So what is “The Slatest”? The heart of “The Slatest” is the Slate Dozen: A list of the 12 most important news stories, blog entries, magazine features, and Web videos of the moment. The Slate Dozen is published three times a day during the week: at 7 a.m., at noon, and at 5 p.m. This three-times-a-day pace is perhaps the most important element of “The Slatest,” …

Before I explain what “The Slatest” is, a painful announcement: After 12 years, and almost 4,400 editions, we are ending “Today’s Papers.” We are also ending “In Other Magazines.” This is like unplugging grandpa from the ventilator: excruciating but necessary. We believe that “The Slatest” preserves what is best about “Today’s Papers” and “In Other Magazines” but is faster and more relevant.

This move by Slate at once recognizes both the continual nature of the news cycle due to the content distribution opportunities provided by the Internet and the value of news aggregators.

For contextual advertisers, more and more opportunities are created for better and more timely advertising as the news cycle gets faster and as that news cycle is “productized” by online publishers like Slate. However, after looking at the design of the Slatest, which is good, one wonders if there are too few advertising positions available at this point in time. That alone will be worth watching.

We’ll be watching The Slatest closely to see how well The Slate succeeds at delivering value with its new product.

Beginning Aug. 3, The Daily Gazette of Schenectady, N.Y. will revert its Web site to a paid-only format … After the changeover, subscribers will receive unlimited content from the Gazette’s Web site, including access to the newspaper’s e-edition. Non-subscribers will be able to access some content, including blogs, TV schedules, photo galleries, and breaking news. They will not, however, be able to read the full text of the paper’s local stories, reviews, obituaries and columns or post comments on stories. “

And, this directly from the Daily Gazette’s editor.

Well, here we go. Could this be the first of many attempts on the part of newspapers to put the horses back in the barn and charge for online content? It’s always been bizarre to me that consumers of news indignantly demand that their content be made free online. Who writes this stuff? How does the hosting get paid for? The content management system? The research needed to complete an article?

The fact is, news costs money. I love citizen journalism, blogging, micro-blogging, and every other content distribution tool available online. But, good, quality journalism costs money – it does not and cannot simply create itself. Good, talented, experienced people must be compensated for it. It’s better for society and democracy if journalism is supported by citizens, and not advertisers. Fewer conflicts of interest and less temptation to skew the news.

I’m excited to see what happens in Schenectady – my hope is that this is a huge success.